Dante’s Ultimate Gamble

Continuing my trend of romance novel audiobooks here! This one was a book-on-MP3, as opposed to a book-on-CD…oooh, so technological! I listened to this during two legs of a bus trip to Washington DC and I’m going to be honest…I slept through a bunch of it. But I don’t think I missed anything too big? I mean, I never felt like I didn’t know what was going on. Maybe I didn’t fall asleep at all. Or maybe I did fall asleep, but my brain kept listening to the book and so when I woke up it was like I hadn’t really slept. Maybe my brain is specially wired to prioritize romance novels over real, restful sleep. (Is this possible? Sleep scientists? Want to weigh in here?)

Whatever, so, here’s the thing: Luc Dante is Italian and also he works as…well, I don’t know what he works as. It sounds like he’s a glorified security guard, but that’s really not sexy enough for a romance hero so let’s upgrade him to an armed guard or something. I don’t know. His family runs a courier business and I don’t know what all that entails but he does security stuff, only not right now because something happened. Like cargo (jewelry) started to go missing or something? So he’s grounded until that all gets sorted out, but even though he’s, like, head of security and whatever he doesn’t seem really concerned about it. I mean, if I was head of security and there was a major security breach on my watch I’d be a little more upset, but not our boy Luc. No sir, nothing can penetrate his icy coolness. You know what else Luc is? DAMAGED. Because what’s less sexy than two adult people who have their shit together falling in love? Nothing! Absolutely nothing! And frankly I’m disgusted that you would even bring it up. Have you no shame?! Also he has a physical injury from a car accident in which he failed to save some people’s lives, thus leading to his emotional wreckitude. So.

Luc gets hired by his grandmother and his grandmother’s friend to protect/babysit/watch the grandmother’s friend’s (hot) granddaughter, Tea (like te-ah, not like…iced tea), because she (the hot granddaughter) is totally goofy and accident-prone and they need her to survive the big bad world until her 25thbirthday so that she can take over the family company. They are also in the jewelry business. So anyway, Luc at first is like, this is stupid! And then he has to save Tea from getting hit by a car because she stops in the middle of the road to answer her cell phone, so he’s like, ohhhh…yeah. So he takes the case! Nothing heals a damaged man faster than a damsel in distress!

So, blah blah, they end up back at his swanky apartment and then they bone. They bone and they bone and they bone and they bone some more and this is almost the entirety of the story. THEY BONE. They love to bone each other! They cannot get enough of the boning! They bone and bone and bone and just when you’re thinking, doesn’t this ever get old? Don’t their boning parts need a rest yet?, they start to bone some more. Because NO it never gets old and NOT their parts do not need to rest. Who do you think they are – MERE MORTALS?! Luc and Tea are young and hot and their names are three letters long, but there’s more to their boning than just that. See, Luc’s family suffers from what’s called Dante’s Inferno, and no that burning sensation isn’t a sexually transmitted infection…it’s a love infection. It’s the deep, burning desire a Dante man gets for his ONE TRUE SOULMATE, as evidenced by probably a dozen previous books in the same series (I assume, pretty much all the dudes are married/burning). And Tea? Oh, Tea makes Luc burn. Too bad he decided never ever to get married or fall in love, in order to protect himself from ever being hurt again, because we all know that works every time! Well, whatever, even if there’s no long term future for their little bone-fest, at least they can enjoy it while it lasts.

Now, this is the jist of the story: they bone! They bone! They bone again! They go on a business trip! Oh no, the brake lines are cut! They bone! Oh no, Luc has a bad dream! They bone! Side scene with the grandmothers admitting that Tea was never in any real danger (except that she totally WAS) and they were just trying to play matchmaker, haha! They bone! Oh no, he tells Tea all his secrets! They bone! Industrial mystery involving Tea’s shady cousin! They bone! Oh, he’s a rotten scoundrel! They bone! They decide to get married because that means that Tea can inherit the company even sooner and boot out her terrible horrible absolutely no good cousin who’s set to ruin her because he’s jealous! They bone! They save the day! They bone! They…stop boning. Oh no. Everyone is sad. Clouds come out and cover up the sun. All the rainbows in the world disappear. Sadness, sadness, overwhelming sadness. Wait! They make up! They love each other! They decide to get married! Tea heals Luc’s damage with her love!

THEY BONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The end. Oh, and also? That thing with the security breach and whatever? Resolved! How? What happened? Who cares! It’s over and he can get back to work and she can go run her company and most importantly they can BONE ALL THE TIME without worrying about anything else! And of course that’s exactly how it will go, because when you work in security and there’s been a breach that was resolved without fanfare or explanation, you literally have NO MORE worries ever! And when you’re 25 years old and the CEO of the family business, it’s basically against the law to be worried! Nothing but smooth sailing for these two, from here on out! DANTE’S INFERNO WILLS IT SO!

What the…are you still reading this? You haven’t shut off the computer and gone to bone your sweetie? Knock that shit off! Get that other shit ON! Get to boning! Do it for Luc and Tea! Do it for Dante! DO IT FOR LOVE!!!!!!!